Getting small

I just finished Kunstler's essay that he posted today and it is worth a read, "We want Solutions!"
He finishes the article with the passing thought that he would be happy to hear people stop talking about how to make cars work on other fuels (thus preserving the status quo), and start talking about "occupying the landscape differently."
A week or so ago Rick and I attended a small tour of a local permaculturist's home. As you might imagine it is a riot of flowers, fruits, vegetables, 3 chickens, water tanks, little fountains, rain water catchment systems, and it felt really really good, physically to stand in the middle of it. Jan made the comment that he really likes to stay home and goes out much less. I had the thought at that moment that many of us really have sterile homes and we need Starbucks or the equivalent to be in a place that we like.
I think Kunstler is touching this point. We cannot reinvent the world with alternative energy and have it be the same. Actually, I can do very little about the rest of the world, but the spots that I choose to stop, my small worlds, I can help make places that I would not want to leave. I was walking around TJ's yard looking at my fruit trees and blueberries, and the compost crate wood bins that he and I built two days ago and thought how wonderful it was to just drink my coffee and see how everything was doing.
You and I can make our personal spaces the place to be. What did Walt Disney say? "Imagineer!
Imagineer your life so that where you are is a wonderful place to be. This centers us down, and we travel less. We are happy to tend our food and plants and talk to friends and sit in the sun and gossip. What if we each traveled half as much, not work travel, but mental health travel, you know, "ah honey, I'm going down to the store," only because you are bored. What would the energy savings of that alone be?
So changing your own small world in the midst of this energy transition is the most important thing you can do because it is the only part you have any control over. Every bit of energy you save is money in your pocket. Put self interest to work, get small and get CHEAP!
Here's a system that is based only on your own self interest.
Stop shopping for anything new. Buy only used and buy at thrift stores or garage sales. All the "disposable" income you save - buy a few solar panels, start a garden, buy one or two good bicycles, start an exercise program (NOT a GYM!) Spend no money except on those things that are useful to you both now and later. Everything you buy should reduce reoccurring costs. Shut off the second cell phone, cut the minutes down. Shut off the landline phone completely. Buy a CB radio and learn how to talk. Create food coops among your friends and try to support local farmers. Most of all, stay home, drive less, walk more. Now is the time to break addictions, not while you're in a crisis.
The bottom line is that you can't influence anyone but yourself. But just imagineer this. You build a place around you that is beautiful to you and functional, in the physical world, and in doing that you find that you are happier. The changes that come require changes in us, not in the energy saving bulb you buy or in a hybrid car (all hybrids use more oil to construct than they will ever save, don't be a dope), in what we want. Change what you want, get small, get solid, dig your toes into the soil and change, or you will be flotsam in the stream come big changes.
There is no political change outside yourself that will stop what comes - the energy and climate switches are thrown, now it is just timing. Don't waste time convincing others, begin the gentle work of changing what makes you happy.
I raked and loaded a bunch of lawn clippings onto the center storage bin of the compost system, and I felt pretty good. It is start.